I love the opening of the NFL regular season.

The repetition of training camp is over.

The boredom of the preseason games is past.

On the NFL's opening weekend, everything seems to rev up 1000%.

Former Seahawks quarterback Brock Huard once told me his first pro preseason game was twice as fast as any college game he ever played in, but his first regular season game was exponentially quicker and harder-hitting.

When we set out to cover the opener, we are not only looking to shoot action photos on the field, but also to cover the game as an event.

To that end, we search high and low to discover the color, the craziness and the exuberance of the game both in and out of the stadium.

After all, there are only just over 100 players from both teams on the field, and 68,000 fans just like you in the stands.

Both are integral to the very life of the event. And so, we can't pass up the chance to capture that with our cameras.

Before the game, staffer Chris Taylor and myself hit the parking lots to find some tailgating action. Because of the lack of large parking lots around the stadium, the pregame partying is not as evident as it is in say, Kansas City or Green Bay, where the stadiums are surrounded by massive lots full of cars, trucks and grills.

I did find this guy and his friends in the north parking lot enjoying some grilled steak and televised games on three (!) televisions hooked up in the bed of their pickup truck:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 38mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec., f4.0 with flash)

Walking back along the west of side of the stadium, I ran into these four nuts from Vancouver B.C., who made the trip to see the Seahawks:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 34mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec., f4.0 with flash)

Back in the stadium, the players were on the field for pregame warmups. A camera I rigged on a monopod held high over my head found an interesting view of the team coming together before returing to the locker room before kickoff:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 16-35mm/f2.8 lens @ 16mm, ISO 200, 1/640 sec., f8.0)

Just before the game, a giant flag was unfurled for the playing of the national anthem. A high angle showed the vastness of the colors:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 16-35mm/f2.8 lens @ 16mm, ISO 200, 1/640 sec., f8.0)

Using the same camera, I shot the famous dressed up fans in the south end zone. Usually you see these fans shot from field level, and you can't see anything behind them. I try not to shoot them because they've been published so much that it's now a tired shot. So I tried to add some newness:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 16-35mm/f2.8 lens @ 16mm, ISO 200, 1/640 sec., f8.0)

Just then, the most valuable person in the stadium walked by -- make that the HIGHEST valued person -- as billionaire and team owner Paul Allen walked by. He's kind of reclusive and his security is nervous about having photographers close to him, so I was fortunate to get one frame off before getting shooed away. It's interesting that I would work so hard to get a frame that's mediocre both compositionally and technically, but is important simply because of the subject:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 38mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec., f4.0 with flash)

Following the anthem was the player introductions. Last year, I placed a remote camera on the field to shoot the intros with a wide-angle. This year, I stayed with a long lens on the opposite side of the field to capture new Seahawk Deon Grant being introduced. My goal in the player introductions was to shoot one of the new players to the team, so Grant worked out great when he stopped to soak in the energy:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 400mm/f2.8 lens, ISO 200, 1/2000 sec, f4.0)

This last photo is the old, tired, cliched "photograph into a pair of mirrored sunglasses to see what's in the reflction" shot, but I liked the color and the goalposts, so you get to see it here. Actually, focusing a shot like this is a little tricky, since the part you want in focus is on a different plane that the subject:

(Canon EOS 1D Mark IIN, EF 400mm/f2.8 lens, ISO 400, 1/1000 sec., f4.0)

It was too bad that none of these photos made the newspaper, but hey, that's life in the big leagues.